Space is still the place - Philadelphia Weekly https://philadelphiaweekly.com/space-is-still-the-place/ ! SECTIONS LATEST POPULAR CALENDAR MUSIC / PEOPLE SPACE IS STILL THE PLACE The Sun Ra Arkestra drops new music since, well...forever A.D. Amorosi November 5th, 2020 " # $ % Legendary Philadelphia funk and soul group The Sun Ra Arkestra recently released its first new music since 1999. | Image 1 of 15 11/16/20, 11:26 AM Space is stillcourtesy: the place STRUT/Sun - Philadelphia Ra Arkestra Weekly archives https://philadelphiaweekly.com/space-is-still-the-place/ There are many things that many audiences miss about the loss of live staged musical events during this ever-lengthening pandemic. Few regularly scheduled concert showcases currently lost to COVID-19 are as beloved and missed as the Sun Ra Arkestra’s deep dive into Halloween night at Johnny Brenda’s. The Hallowed eve party is not a long, lived-in tradition (yet), but a sturdy one, one that, since 2015, finds the Germantown-encamped, cosmically avant-garde, big band – led by 96-year-old saxophonist and composer Marshall Allen, an Arkestra member since 1957 who took over bandleader duties when Ra moved onto a higher celestial plane in 1993 – enveloping J-Brenda’s small stage like a spider’s web. Not just because of its legion (12 to 16 members strong), and its friendly array of complex brass, reed and percussive instrumentation, but also the ensemble’s choice of long, wide, colorfully flowing robes in all their Saturn-al splendor, and its choice of toweringly floppy, Venusian headgear. If Space is the Place, as goes Ra’s longtime motto, they’re going to need all the universal room they can afford just to comfortably keep the Arkestra in check, and playing. Tightly squozen onto Brenda’s stage from the looks of this 2016 full concert footage (), Ra trumpeter Michael Ray – handpicked by Sun in 1978, and an Arkestra mainstay ever since – is the most jovial and playful of all the group. Along with his mugging and acting out during this filmed 2016 gig, Ray put the interplanetary spectre of Sun Ra, the man and his music, into Afrofuturist perspective by intoning all gods and phantoms connected with this spookiest of holidays. “Sometimes you have to call upon some spirits,” said Ray during the 2016 clip, before introducing a woozy, boo-zy version of the “Casper the Friendly Ghost” cartoon theme song. “Most of the ghosts that pop up, they have their own things to say, but this is a friendly ghost.” 2 of 15 11/16/20, 11:26 AM Space is still the place - Philadelphia Weekly https://philadelphiaweekly.com/space-is-still-the-place/ Sun Ra, June Tyson, John Gilmore, Eddie Gale and Danny Ray Thompson (the latter two having passed away in 2020) are just some of the warm, friendly Arkestra ghosts whose spirits Ray, Marshall Allen and Knoell Scott conjure up on a regular basis. Most particularly, these same spirits happily haunt the good grooves of Ra standards and Allen originals that fill “Swirling” – the first new full-length from the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1999 – playing alongside still-living Arkestra members whose calling is to provoke, tease, balm, bruise, boisterously laugh up a storm, and, in accordance with Sun’s own rules, practice and pray. Michael and Laranah Phipps-Ray and their musical efforts ensure that Space will always be the Place. | Image: STRUT archives “Ra said that all that practice and prayer will get you through anything,” said Ray on a hot summer’s night in August, after having played at the Arkestra’s communal live-and-work space in Germantown – masked and safely distanced – with a 10-year-old neighbor playing drums. “Act with a sense of urgency and move with alacrity.” That’s easy to say for Ray, a trumpeter who is staunchly masterful as he is madly adventurous, as willing to ride along the precipice of tradition (be it New Orleans’ parish parade funk or Philly-intensive 3 of 15 11/16/20, 11:26 AM Space is still the place - Philadelphia Weekly https://philadelphiaweekly.com/space-is-still-the-place/ R&B) and free jazz futurism with each and every lick. Moving with such fevered zeal and studied dedication has not only gotten Ray through the Arkestra (according to both Ray and Allen, Ra was a hardcore taskmaster and teacher), such guiding principles have pushed the jovial trumpeter, composer and arranger through storied sessions with Philly’s own Patti Labelle, Fat Larry’s Band, Byard Lancaster, The Delfonics and The Stylistics, a long membership in the brass section and writing team of Kool & the Gang, a bit of live recording wih Phish, the leadership of his own, self-named, funky Ra-inlfuenced ensemble, Cosmic Krewe (they have a new single, “Covid-19 PSA”), and a working relationship with his wife, Laranah Phipps-Ray in her band of “Sun Ra’s Angels,” La Funkalicious. “In everything that we do, say, play and sing, we are satellites of Sun Ra, his music and belief systems,” said Phipps-Ray of what Ra himself called an “equation” – not a philosophy – based on logic and touching on elements of Gnostic teachings, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and Egyptian Mysticism. Most of all, Ra’s collective vision has long been made him an avatar of Afrofuturism, along with author Octavia Butler, photographer Renee Cox and painter Angelbert Metoyer – all leading the way from the African diaspora through to the rich diversity of various technocultures and science fictions. “People are hungry for this sort-of spiritual sustenance,” said Ray last week, not long after he and his wife finished several recording sessions with the Barenaked Ladies’ Kevin Hearn, with whom they played many times in the past (their collaborative single “Hello” is due out shortly). “The aura of all the negative forces that we’re being subjected to at this particular time made it crucial that a positive force – the sound of ‘Swirling’ – be unleashed. And there’s always more music coming as Marshall writes every day, and I write every day and Laranah writes every day. If space is the place, there’s music to go with that. ‘COVID-19 PSA’ is a blip of many blips to come. And “Swirling” is the tip of the iceberg as to what Sun and Marshall have.” The first night that I spoke with Michael and Larranah Phipps-Ray, they were laughing about a summer’s storm blackout in their family home of Trenton, NJ, that they had just 4 of 15 11/16/20, 11:26 AM Space is still the place - Philadelphia Weekly https://philadelphiaweekly.com/space-is-still-the-place/ experienced before my call. They weren’t panicked in the dark. “As long as there’s candles to be lit, we’re fine,” said Phipps-Ray with a laugh. “Besides, there’s always a light,” said Ray, quietly, without stating whether the glow of which he spoke came from the heavens or emanated from another galaxy. Drums, trumpets and enchanting vocals have been a mainstay of Sun Ra in all of its iterations. | Image: STRUT Archives The sound of a storm’s thunderclaps and the roar of lightyears is but another instrument – a processional drum, a winnowing holler – to a man who has played through flurries of hyperactive oddball time signatures, chanted vocals, Ellington-ian Harlem Nocturnal fantasias, psychedelic organ-grinding, Egyptian blues motifs, sambas and what could pass for elephants braying on aptly-titled Ra studio albums such as 1978’s “Lanquidity,” 1980’s “Strange Celestial Road,” 1992’s “Destination Unknown” – even this week’s “Swirling” – to say nothing of genuinely countless official, and unofficial, live Sun albums. Throw in what Ray has executed on his own Cosmic Krewe albums such as “Funk If I Know,” and his newest single, and the very real sound of an Orleans’ parish second line party comes into 5 of 15 11/16/20, 11:26 AM Space is still the place - Philadelphia Weekly https://philadelphiaweekly.com/space-is-still-the-place/ the light. “Yeah, Cosmic Krewe is a lot more direct than the Arkestra, but it’s just another part of the same hemisphere,” said Ray, as if the gutsy funk of his bawdy band’s music is but a dirtier ring around Saturn. How Trenton-born Ray, then his wife Laranah, got to Saturn by way of Germantown all started with Ra’s voluminous catalog of music – an array of 80-plus studio-made and live recorded albums from Ra’s start in 1953 up until the point where Ray entered the Arkestra in 1978. “I didn’t know his music, then suddenly I was confronted with all of it at once,” said Ray of meeting Ra during one of the latter’s famed, epic Germantown concerts in Vernon Park. At the time, Ray was playing trumpet in the John Minnis’ Big Bone Band, and was preparing to commence work with Kool & the Gang for its “Everybody’s Dancin’” album. “You looked at the members of Ra’s Arkestra on the bandstand then, and every one of them had stacks upon stacks of sheet music piled high under their chairs. Not like the regular thing where you have all of the music on a stand in front of you. This was stacked high like phone books, because Ra had so much stuff broken down by his own genres: standards, stomps, Fletcher Henderson material, Jimmy Lunceford stuff. There were more stacks dedicated to his arrangements – very singular – as every song he wrote had very particular structures. All I could think was ‘Wow, how do these cats keep all that music straight?’ But, they did because the music was amazing.” Add to the Arkestra’s sonic display, two fancifully adorned drum kits, fire eaters, dancers and chanters running around, singing “space is the place,” and Ray was hooked.